Spaceship Path Optimization

If a spaceship was launched from earth with the goal to go as fast as possible (so it can go as far as possible as quickly as possible). What speed can it achieve? How many assists should (or can) it use?

The solution will show the paths of greatest velocity, along with the velocities the ship can obtain.

Example Output

Size max_distance is 2.6634733333333336 parsecs per 1 unit
num is 119615

Starting Simulation:

Ion Propulsion
size of total_paths is 32381
Stars:	5	Final Velocity:	450.7997723432896	km/s
Stars:	5	Final Velocity:	448.5139528868448	km/s
Stars:	5	Final Velocity:	445.2736262530786	km/s
Stars:	5	Final Velocity:	442.798857207814	km/s
Stars:	5	Final Velocity:	438.33305782183515	km/s
Stars:	4	Final Velocity:	344.9302847836076	km/s
Stars:	4	Final Velocity:	344.032428386883	km/s
Stars:	4	Final Velocity:	342.26248250697864	km/s
Stars:	4	Final Velocity:	341.38142157159524	km/s

About

This project acts as my midterm and final exam for PHYS 3150 - Computational Physics - at Clemson University.

The star data was retrieved from hyg.

Assumptions

The only objects in the universe are fixed stars (with velocities).
The ship is the proposed second stage of the SLS
The engine is an ideal rocket-propulsion engine

Formulas

Mass-luminocity equation
- (L/L0) = (M/M0)^a, a = 3.5
Tsiolkovsky rocket equation
- vf = v0 + ve*ln(M0/Mf)
Gravitational Assist
- (1-m/M)(vi+2u)sqrt(1-((4uvf(1-cos(theta)))/(vi+2u)^2))

Limits and criticisms

The program currently only considers one set of values
Recursion depth is hard-coded
Sorting is used too much/takes too long
Only considers one octant of universe
Does not record time
Paths due not prune as much as they should
Only stars are plotted, not vectors
Contains dead code

Running

git clone https://github.com/harrisonhall/comp
Download hygdata_v3.csv from hyg into mod.
cd comp
python3.6 main.py